MOSCOW: Moscow reacted angrily on Tuesday as its neighbour Azerbaijan admitted that its vote at the Eurovision Song Contest awarding “nul points” to Russia’s song appeared to have been falsified.The scandal topped the agenda at a televised briefing between the countries’ ...

MOSCOW Russia was Tuesday set to question the sole survivor of a deadly police raid outside Moscow that authorities said had prevented a major attack in the capital.The operation in the Moscow region town of Orekhovo-Zuyevo took place shortly after twin car bombs killed four and injured more than ...

MOSCOW : At least eight people were killed and more than a dozen injured on Monday in twin car blasts outside a court building in the southern Russian city of Makhachkala in the restless region of Dagestan. The local investigative committee said that "within the space of a few minutes, two cars ...

MOSCOW - A Russian capsule filled with 45 mice and 15 newts along with other small animals returned from a month's mission in orbit on Sunday with data scientists hope will pave the way for a manned flight to Mars.Russian Mission Control said the Bion-M craft landed softly with the help of a ...

BEIRUT  - The United States chided Russia for sending missiles to the Syrian government as plans for a peace conference promoted by Washington and Moscow were hit by diplomatic rifts over its scope and purpose.Sectarian bloodshed in neighboring Iraq during Friday prayers, a hacking attack on ...

MOSCOW UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Russia agreed Friday that a peace conference on Syria should be held "as soon as possible", even as Moscow defied growing global pressure over its arms supplies to the Damascus regime.Ban met Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov before starting talks with Russian President ...

MOSCOW Russia and the United States on Wednesday sought to limit the damage to already troubled ties from a new spy scandal that erupted when Moscow caught a blonde-wigged alleged CIA agent who was reportedly seeking information on the Boston bombings.The suspected agent, who Moscow says was caught ...

MOSCOW Russia on Tuesday said it had detained an alleged American CIA agent working undercover at the US embassy who was discovered with a large stash of money as he was trying to recruit a Russian intelligence officer.Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB, ex-KGB) identified the man as Ryan C ...

WASHINGTONThe United States and Britain on Monday pledged to forge ahead with diplomatic efforts to end the civil war in Syria, saying they had found common ground with Russia on how to proceed.US President Barack Obama and British PM David Cameron vowed to increase pressure on the regime of ...

ISTANBUL : Russia has not yet agreed to extend the terms of its  $3.2b loan to Cyprus, Russia's deputy finance minister said on Saturday. "There was a request ... to change the duration of the loan, we promised to think about it," Sergei Storchak told reporters, on the sidelines of the ...

WASHINGTON : - Russia withheld “crucial” information from the United States on one of the suspects of last month’s deadly Boston Marathon bombings, The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday.Citing unnamed US officials, the Journal said on its website that the information ...

MOSCOW/BEIRUT - Russia said on Saturday there was disagreement over who should represent the opposition in a Syrian peace process, only days after Moscow and Washington announced a joint effort to bring government and rebels to an international conference.The dispute bodes ill for a civil war in ...

Istanbul - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development cut sharply on Friday its 2013 growth outlook for countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and for Russia and Egypt in particular.The EBRD slashed its January forecast of 3.1 percent growth to 2.2 percent for a broad swath of ...

DAMASCUSSyria on Thursday welcomed a US-Russian initiative to find a political solution to its conflict, counting on ally Moscow to stand firm, even as Washington said President Bashar al-Assad would have to step down.US Secretary John Kerry, who announced the initiative earlier this week, said the ...

MOSCOW : When Vladimir Putin returned one year ago to the Kremlin for a historic third term, Russia could boast robust if unspectacular growth, a budget flush with cash from high oil prices and the world’s most profitable company. But in the space of just 12 months, growth has slipped that ...

SAINT-PETERSBURG: Russia’s famous Mariinsky theatre in Saint Petersburg was to inaugurate a new ballet and opera house on Thursday in an event coinciding with the 60th birthday of its hugely ambitious and well-connected director Valery Gergiev.The new Mariinsky-2 theatre will open with a gala ...

WASHINGTON: Nasa said it will pay $424 million more to Russia for giving US astronauts a lift to the International Space Station. The hefty bill includes the training and transporting of six astronauts to and from the ISS in 2016 and the first half of 2017 in Russian Soyuz spacecraft. That comes ...

DAMASCUS   (AFP/Reuters) - A bombing in the heart of Damascus killed at least 13 people Tuesday, as Russia banned its civilian planes from Syrian airspace after the crew of one reported coming under threat over the war-hit country.US President Barack Obama, meanwhile, expressed concerns ...

MOSCOWRussian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Monday to renew efforts to find a solution to a decades-long territorial row that has prevented the two sides from signing a World War II peace treaty.After two hours of talks in the Kremlin, they agreed to order ...

  NEW YORK Russian authorities secretly recorded one of theBostonbombers suspects discussing ‘jihad’ with his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, in 2011 but failed to alertUSsecurity agencies, according to US media reports. US officials were told for the first time this week that two ...

Ice is gradually thawing between Pakistan and Russia. It is resulting in strategic dialogue, one facet of which is about joining hands to establish peace and security in Afghanistan. This is quite significant because not long ago the country was the bone of contention between the two foes, the ...

MOSCOW - Russia will not revert to winter time ahead of the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. Fans have complained of the difficulty of following sporting events, such as soccer's Champions League, taking place in Western Europe after Russia moved to a four-hour ...

islamabad - Pakistan and Russia Thursday reaffirmed the commitment to deepen their bilateral partnership through consultative process and regular exchanges. Both sides made this commitment at the 8th meeting of the Pakistan-Russia Consultative Group on Strategic Stability held here on ...

Syria hopes to clinch more financial aid from its allies Russia and Iran soon, but still has enough foreign reserves to pursue its war on rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, the central bank governor said.Speaking at the bank's headquarters, hit by a car bomb on April 8, Adeeb Mayaleh ...

MOSCOW: Russian police announced Wednesday the capture of a gunman suspected to have killed six people in an attack in a busy town centre, after a massive manhunt lasting more than 24 hours. Convicted criminal Sergei Pomazun, 31, was shown on television pinned down by police who found him trying to ...

MOSCOW- An armed former convict on Monday killed six people, including a 14-year-old girl, in a broad daylight shooting at a hunting shop in the Russian city ofBelgorod, police said. The man, apparently armed with a hunting rifle, killed three salespeople at the shop and two passers-by outside the ...

MOSCOW Russia's Ekaterina Makarova pulled Russia level at 2-2 with Slovakia in their Fed Cup semi-final battle on Sunday, beating Daniela Hantuchova in a tough three-setter here. Makarova won 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in two hours 29 minutes to record her first ever win over Hantuchova in three attempts."Today ...

MOSCOW (AFP) - A Russian rocket carrying a capsule filled with 45 mice and 15 newts along with other small animals blasted off Friday on a month-long orbital mission that should pave the way for manned flights to Mars.Live footage on the Roscosmos space agency website showed the Soyuz lifting off ...

MOSCOW: Chelsea football club owner and superyacht enthusiast Roman Abramovich slipped out of the top 10 richest Russians in Forbes magazine's 2013 ranking published on Thursday.The flamboyant steel, mining, real estate and telecommunications tycoon has lost $1.9 billion of his fortune and is now ...

MOSCOWDSMADONNA could be banned from future trips to Russia, according to reports.The singer performed two shows in Moscow and St Petersburg last year, but officials claim she didn’t have permission to work in the country. The government says the visa it granted did not allow her to work for ...